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Could Adobe (or someone else) adopt magnetic timeline features in a tracked timeline?
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[David Lawrence] “fix the magnetic timeline “
Genuinely curious: what is it that is wrong with X’s magnetic timeline, and what would you do to fix it?
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Getting rid of tracks may have solved collisions or patching and Roles makes it possible to effectively bus signals by definable type but the lack of tracks removes an important level of audio signal processing and manipulation.
Audio manipulation of levels & EQ & plugins can happen at the clip, track, bus and master bus level. In X then beyond clip level manipulation and in the absence of a track based audio manipulation then Roles needs to allow for audio manipulation with dynamics levels, EQ, aux sends and plugins. Things like reverb are added at a track based aux send level, not clip based as a series of edited clips may need reverb that blends and extends beyond a clip based plugin.
So if X could have a system of sub roles and master roles all of that could be solved. All of it needs to be simple to initially implement and easy to change. But roles needs to have a system of inserting plugins, dynamic automatable levels and EQ and somewhere also a system of being able to handle aux sends and returns before it is anything other than an offline audio system that is clunky to export to a DAW.
Clip based audio manipulation only is unable to match the speed and power of a track bus based editing & mixing system.
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Michael-
I completely agree with the need for proper audio bussing. Until recently, this ability has been missing from all NLEs. Avid implemented a form of bussing a couple of versions ago. Am I correct that Premiere has a similar feature? (Don’t really know Premiere.) X is overdue for this feature.
As far as the general discussion, I would quibble with describing the lack of this feature as evidence that the magnetic timeline is “broken.” Just as Avid wasn’t “broken” before, X’s magnetic timeline can be improved upon. Improving is different from fixing.
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Jeff,
I am not saying anything is broken, just agreeing with David L that there is room for improvement. Pr has clip, track and bus with automatable levels and ability to insert plugins. So it is better but the patching & collision/overwrite avoidance is messy.
To my mind and a consistent thing I have said from day one about X is that without tracks for organisation and manipulation there needs to be another way to take advantage of what has always been good about the magnetic timeline in avoiding the time consuming task of patching & collision/ overwrite. But both it and a track based approach can be vastly improved in ways that DAWs like Fairlight have been doing for years. I can imagine a system that can be optimized for editing but without throwing away the power of organizing and manipulating the audio chain.
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[Jeff Markgraf] “Am I correct that Premiere has a similar feature? (Don’t really know Premiere.) X is overdue for this feature.”
Premiere enables mixing on clips, tracks, submix tracks and a master bus. Effects can be added to any of the tracks. You can also “send to” Audition for both clip repair/processing and full multi-track mixes. Premiere also includes built-in EBU/CALM compliant loudness metering.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
In addition to what MG says, roles needs some sort of color coding so that elements can be monitored at a glance across a timeline. Timelines are maps, and I should be able to see at a glance where my VO is, my SFX are, and where DIA/SOT lives. In a track environment, all VO runs across a certain line, which is how I know immediately what is VO and what isn’t. If I can make all VO green, and all SFX orange, then I need tracks quite a bit less than I do now.
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[Chris Harlan] “In a track environment, all VO runs across a certain line, which is how I know immediately what is VO and what isn’t. If I can make all VO green, and all SFX orange, then I need tracks quite a bit less than I do now.
“Chris,
It’s in the program design right now in the way you can select any role in the timeline index and all the clips associated with a role will highlight. Basically, it would just be giving the user the ability to make the highlight persistent and assign various colors to various roles.
Not there now, but it’s been on Richard Taylors master list of FCP X feature requests for quite a while – and I know the X team is aware of that. So who knows?
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[Jeff Markgraf] “Genuinely curious: what is it that is wrong with X’s magnetic timeline, and what would you do to fix it?”
As Michael points out, tracks have many benefits in bus-based audio routing and mixing. A role-based mixer would be a big improvement. As Chris points out, color coding and some kind of better control over clip layer order would help with organization.
But none of these things solve what I believe is a more fundamental problem with the magnetic timeline’s current design.
The problem is with temporal frame-of-reference.
In a traditional, track-based, open timeline, the temporal frame-of-reference is absolute and defined outside the media clips by the UI window.
In the magnetic timeline, the temporal frame-of-reference is relative and constantly shifting because it’s defined by the primary storyline inside the project.
The benefit of this is it makes re-arranging sections of the primary storyline very simple and for A/B style cutting it’s very fast.
But as soon as you need an absolute, external time reference, the model falls apart, requiring workarounds to do things you get automatically with tracks.
A lot of people misunderstand the history and reason for tracks in NLEs. Tracks are not simply modeling the physical attributes of physical media such as tape or film. Virtual tracks in a UI are actually parallel, temporally synchronous, channels of A/V media. Instead of tracks, think channels or streams.
For example, I work on multi-channel video art installations. There’s no primary view. There are multiple channels or streams, all playing within an external temporal framework.
The magnetic timeline doesn’t make any sense in this scenario.
[David Mathis] “I agree though for personal preferences I prefer audio tracks, not sure why.”
Again, I think it’s because when working with audio, (especially music) absolute time and an external frame of reference is essential. If trackless is better, why haven’t we seen a trackless DAW yet?
We had some great discussions about this stuff a couple years ago when FCPX first launched. If you want to go down the rabbit hole, check out these links:
The Magnetic Timeline — Thoughts on Apple’s New Paradigm
NLEs, DAWs, Tracks and Audio-centric Workflows — Continuing the Conversation…
The Open Timeline and Spatial Workflows — An Example
As far as the fix, it’s actually pretty simple conceptually. I’ve written about it here before:
The big innovation of the magnetic timeline is that instead of existing in absolute time, it’s based on hierarchical, parent/child relationships between clips. I think the UI designers got the top of the hierarchy wrong. There needs to be an option to make the sequence (project) the top parent, rather then it always being the primary storyline.
I propose a simple and advanced way of of using FCPX. In simple mode, it behaves exactly as it does now. In advanced mode, it allows multiple primaries in a temporally absolute window. Secondaries are unnecessary, all storylines are primary and stay synced to absolute time. There are implementation details but I’m confident it would work and would be the best of both worlds.
Apple has my number if they want to talk 😉
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David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence] “I propose a simple and advanced way of of using FCPX. In simple mode, it behaves exactly as it does now. In advanced mode, it allows multiple primaries in a temporally absolute window. Secondaries are unnecessary, all storylines are primary and stay synced to absolute time. There are implementation details but I’m confident it would work and would be the best of both worlds.”
A simple and advanced UI/layout (kinda like what DVD SP has/had) is something I would like too but I doubt it will happen. I just finished the Jobs’ biography and Steve’s vision that he was creating perfect pieces of technological art (well, as perfect as tech, time and budgets allowed) was a fundamental part of his process (going all the way back to the first Apple computer). He didn’t want users to f-up his vision of how the product should look and act.
What’s interesting about that mindset is that these days (especially with the youngsters) there is a big remix culture and artists will release work with the intent of their fans reworking it and creating something new from it. The final work from the artist is just the beginning. I remember a number of years ago Trent Reznor released some NIN songs as Garage Band projects (for lack of a better term) so the fans could see how the songs were built and remix them.
With X Apple has come up with a different philosophy of how NLE’s should flow and I wonder if trying to add too many track-like functions will just result in something muddled. Same thing goes for Avid, PPro etc. if they try to mimic some of the ‘good’ parts of the magnetic timeline that users might want. It kinda reminds me of the call for PIOP in X or more open file linking in Avid (AMA). The results of the requests didn’t exactly turn out as planned because the NLEs weren’t built with features like that in mind. Yes, products need to improve but at some point the devs have to draw a line in the sand and not try to bolt on features that won’t work well given the underlying philosophy/foundation of their software (even if the some users are asking for them). All software has pros and cons and it’s up to the end user to figure out which software has the most pros for their needs/wants and go that direction. I’d rather have distinct products from Apple, Avid, Adobe, Blackmagic, etc., rather than all of them try to created muddled clones of each other.
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[Andrew Kimery] “I’d rather have distinct products from Apple, Avid, Adobe, Blackmagic, etc., rather than all of them try to created muddled clones of each other.”
Indeed
The worst thing you can do is mess up what you got chasing after somebody that doesn’t want you anyway.
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